Auction brings $6.5 million for troubled Springfield hotel

December 14, 2009

The Chicago Tribune's Clout Street blog reports: A Springfield hotel with a long-troubled state loan was auctioned today for $6.5 million -- tens of millions of dollars less than what the state is owed.

State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who is expected to approve the winning bid, has sought since the start of his term about three years ago to end the state's involvement in what he called a "sad saga of Illinois politics." But he said he would never be satisfied that the state couldn't recover all of the $30 million the owners owed in principal and interest over the years.

Steve Horve, an owner of hotels in Illinois and Michigan, delivered the winning bid in a live auction, saying afterward he got a good deal on the business currently operated as the Abraham Lincoln Hotel and Conference Center.

The hotel was built under a loan arrangement during the tenure of Gov. James R. Thompson, a Republican, and Jerome Cosentino, a Democrat, in 1982.